


Gluttony with a soft centre

by Rosywonder



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Family, Gen, Humor, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosywonder/pseuds/Rosywonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon and Illya revisit their past with the help of some cookies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gluttony with a soft centre

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a challenge on the seven deadly sins, and after seeing some splendid biscuits (cookies) made by Bluemeanybeany.

‘Stop moaning Napoleon and keep up.’

            ‘That is easy for you to say, and I would appreciate it if you were to walk at a reasonable speed.  We are not in the gym now.’  Illya Kuryakin glanced round and slackened his pace, a smile playing across his lips as he watched his former partner stop and lean against the railings in front of the house.  Napoleon’s chest gradually assumed a more normal breathing pattern as he lounged back against the bars and surveyed the Russian running up the steps towards the front door as if he’d just got up, rather than after a day’s work and then an hour of excruciating exercise in the gym afterwards.

 

            ‘Take it both as a warning and a preparation’ Kuryakin replied, beginning to open the door.  Napoleon turned and followed him more slowly up the steps,  his legs and back beginning to scream ‘drink and sofa’ at him in that order. 

            ‘Warning and preparation?’ he managed to gasp as Illya opened the door.

            ‘A warning that I will be checking up on your exercise routine from now on’ he said, switching on the light in the hall, ‘and a preparation for the rigours of the weekend ahead.’

 

Napoleon managed to nod before forcing himself to follow Kuryakin down the stairs towards the kitchen. 

            ‘And you haven’t started packing yet?’ he said looking round.  The room was exactly as it had been for all the years Napoleon remembered it since Illya’s marriage.  The detritus of a large family was very much in evidence, from the photographs on the dresser to the series of toy boxes lined up against the wall, and, in the corner, a well-used baby’s rocking chair.

            ‘If you remember’ Kuryakin said, shutting the fridge door, and beginning to peel off his jacket, I have a month’s holiday starting tonight, in which to pack up all this.  So, this is our plan.  We have two days in which to eat, drink and to salute the future.’

            ‘Or to eat, drink and make ourselves thoroughly miserable about it.’ Napoleon said, heading towards the kitchen table and a much needed chair. 

 

            ‘Er, Illya, I think your daughters may have left us a little something.’  The table was covered with a large piece of white paper, hiding what appeared to be a series of plates.  Round the edge was a carefully drawn design of, when Napoleon looked closely, guns and bombs incongruously scattered between some rather delicate hearts and flowers.

            ‘The hearts and flowers are Pascale’ Illya said from behind him, ‘the other is Anastasiya, I’m afraid.’  In the middle was written, in very neat handwriting, ‘Enjoy!  from P and A, followed by a very large mouth drawn by a more childish hand. 

 

Illya carefully untaped the ends of the paper and rolled it up across the table.

            ‘Oh my good God’ Napoleon whistled under his breath.  Illya leaned over the plates, which all bore, Napoleon noticed, a rather distinct monochrome pattern of a New York skyline on them, and slowly looked at each of their contents.

            ‘They’ve been in my briefcase again’ he said.  Napoleon stood up and followed his partner’s head, a smile beginning to form on his lips as he looked first one way and then the other.

            ‘You have, what, a collection of photos of these people in an open briefcase?’

            ‘Yes, I have a collection of these people, as you put it, but it was locked.  Tasiya must have picked the lock again.’

            ‘You taught a seven year old child to pick locks?’

            ‘Um, no, I taught a fourteen year old child to pick locks and she taught her sister.’

            ‘OK, so your girls have looked in your ‘collection’ and made these cookies.’  Illya looked up, scanning Napoleon’s face, a rather worried look beginning to assert itself on his face.  Napoleon walked to one end of the table and drew out a chair, then returned to the other end and sat down.

            ‘Well, we wouldn’t want to waste their efforts then, would we?  I’d say this was a rather fitting end to life in Section Two.’  Illya stared at him momentarily, and then smiled, a rather evil little smile, Napoleon thought.

            ‘In that case, I think I might be able to provide something that would make this occasion just that bit better.’ He said, disappearing over to the dresser.  He returned, after a slight crashing sound, with a set of twelve small glasses, which he placed carefully between each plate.

            ‘Have you noticed there’s a kind of symmetry here’ he murmured, turning towards the fridge.  ‘In the middle, the central cookie is . ..

            ‘Mr Waverly, our former leader, now happily retired and enjoying life to the full’ Napoleon replied.

            ‘Exactly.  Flanking him are . . .’

            ‘Us.  Or rather us as we were, complete, I might add, with those rather out of proportion identification badges.’

            ‘And, in glorious technicolor, flanking us are . . .’

            ‘A selection of characters from our past, each carefully chosen it seems.’

            ‘Indeed’.  Illya began to pour a generous amount of what Napoleon saw was an extremely expensive Vodka into each glass, casting the now empty bottles onto the floor and then taking his place at the other end of the table.

            ‘Now Napoleon, the challenge is this.  Are you able to eat and drink your way through our glorious past, saluting our friends and foes as you go, and get to Mr Waverly before I can?

            ‘And the winner . . .?’

            ‘The winner takes all, my friend.  Well, he takes Mr Waverly and the message that my girls have left behind his right ear.’  Napoleon glanced towards the middle of the table.  It was true, poking out from behind Mr Waverly’s head was a small pink piece of paper, rather like a message on a fortune cookie.  Napoleon stood up and took off his jacket, hanging it neatly on the back of his chair, before moving it round the table so that he was in front of his half of the cookie collection.  Illya narrowed his eyes before moving his chair round the other side. 

 

            ‘Are you ready?  Oh, and in order to be absolutely fair, you have to identify the person you’re eating’, Illya said, lifting up a rather thin shaped cookie wearing an orange dress.  ‘I’ll begin if you like.  Miss Diketon, I’m going to eat you to death.’  Without appearing to breathe, he bit the head off, rapidly followed by the rest of the body and accompanying implements which were next to her on the plate.  After the barest pause, the first vodka of the evening disappeared in the same way, the Russian’s eyes closing and opening, cat like, in the evening light.

            ‘Um, how did you know it was .. .?’

            ‘She had a knife on her left thigh.  Amazing detail for a cookie, I must say.’  Napoleon leaned towards the first plate, noting the female appearance of his first cookie. 

            ‘Aha, blonde hair, red lips and those well-turned thighs.  If I’m not mistaken,  I’m about to eat the fair Angelique.’

            ‘You’re not mistaken’ mumbled Illya, halfway up the leg of Mrs Partridge.  There followed a rapid consuming of the next couple of platefuls,  Napoleon’s efforts slightly slowed down by his amusement at watching his partner eat Mother Fear and her whip at the same time, while he felt a particular pleasure in biting off the head of Colonel Pick before stuffing down his rather huge cookie body. 

 

Victor Marton was now the only cookie laying between Illya and his cookie self on the penultimate plate before Waverly.  As he viciously bit off Marton’s arm, he noticed Napoleon stop and stare at the next cookie figure on his side of Waverly.  The uniform cap, with its unmistakeable ‘N’ told him why his partner had hesitated.

            ‘What’s wrong’ he mumbled, the plate in front of him rising slightly towards him and then righting itself on the table. 

            ‘I’m not sure’ he heard Napoleon say in a slightly slurred voice, ‘that I want to eat you yet.’

            ‘You’re not eating me at all.  I’m over here’ Illya replied slowly.  ‘Just think of him as not me.  I mean he wasn’t me, I was him.  Oh, just eat him.’  He leaned over and stared at the plate with Napoleon.

            ‘He has a misshapen head’ Napoleon managed to say.  Illya leaned over a little more, gripping the table to stop himself landing face down onto Colonel Nexor.

            ‘Yeah, but the scar is good’ he said, swaying back into his seat.  And you’ve got lots of icing with his cap.’

            ‘True’ Napoleon managed, lifting up Nexor until he was upside down, before dropping him feet first into his mouth and finishing him off with a very large amount of Vodka.

 

He wasn’t aware that his head had sunk to the level of the plates until all he could see was his partner’s hair in front of him, shielding him from seeing that the Illya cookie was no longer on the plate beyond Waverly.  Kuryakin’s head also seemed to be lying across the other side of the table, his body stretched out behind it and curved round the table like a kind of human clamp.  Napoleon shook his head slightly to reactivate his brain, finding that it resulted in the table seeming to disappear and then rematerialize in front of him.  He pushed  Illya’s hair out of the way only to see with horror that only two black legs were now sticking out of the Russian’s mouth.  Frantically he grabbed for his cookie self and stuffed it between his open lips, his other hand snatching the final vodka and bringing it towards his now cookie filled mouth.  As the room appeared to take off and spin out towards space, he forced his vodka hand forward again and closed onto Waverly.  An iron grip descended onto his wrist, making him jerk back.  To his horror he saw that all that remained in his hand were Waverly’s legs. 

 

He bent his neck upward on the table.  Blue eyes met his, and in his partner’s hand, he could see Waverly’s head just poking out between his finger and thumb. 

            ‘Partners forever?’ he heard Kuryakin say from what sounded like another planet.

            ‘Partners forever.’

 

Something reminding Illya of a laser appeared to be boring itself into his brain via his eye sockets.  Breathing very slowly through his mouth, he began to raise his eyelids.  Five attempts later, they had opened enough for him to read the words printed in very large type on the piece of pink paper before him.

 

_Gluttony_ :  (n)  from the latin _gluttire_ , to gulp down or swallow.  An over-indulgence and over consumption of food, drink or intoxicants to the point of waste.

 

Thomas Aquinas said, ‘ "Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire... leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists." (2, 148, ad 1)

 

Have a lovely weekend Papa and Uncle Napoleon.  P and A xxxxxxxx

 

 


End file.
